speakers Tuesday 9 March
Elisa Boscolo
Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Division of Experimental Hematology and Cancer Biology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, University of Cincinnati, USA
Elisa Boscolo holds a PhD in tissue engineering from the University of Padova. She worked as researcher and instructor at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Since 2014, she works at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. Her overarching scientific goal is to deepen the understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying vascular anomalies development and expansion to enable the generation of faithful murine models. This will provide solid bases for translational research aimed at the identification of targeted therapeutical approaches for affected patients. The strength of her research program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and University of Cincinnati is the use of patient-derived biopsies to isolate and characterize vascular cells to determine activated signaling pathways, test targeted treatments, and establish murine models of vascular anomalies to determine the mechanisms involved in the abnormal blood vessel formation and expansion. This unique field of study enabled her to establish extended collaborations with patient associations, clinicians and clinician-scientists that are the world-experts in the field of vascular anomalies. This collaborative work is cornerstone for the investigation and the identification of novel efficacious therapeutic strategies for children affected by endangering vascular tumors or malformations.
Ana Angulo-Urarte
Ana Angulo-Urarte is a senior postdoctoral researcher and Junior Leader “la Caixa” Fellow at the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute (IJC), Barcelona.
She obtained her PhD at the University of Barcelona, studying PI3K signalling in vascular morphogenesis. During her postdoctoral training at the Academic Medical Center (AMC), Amsterdam, she studied how force-dependent mechanisms at adherens junctions regulate EC communication and collective behaviour in angiogenesis.
She now leads a research line investigating how intrinsic and extrinsic factors, such as cell lineage, tissue context, and microenvironmental cues, shape susceptibility to PIK3CA-driven overgrowth in PIK3CA-related overgrowth spectrum (PROS) across vascular and non-vascular tissues.
Sarah E. Sheppard
Clinical Tenure Track Investigator, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Bethesda, MD, USA
Dr. Sarah Sheppard is a clinical tenure track investigator at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The focus of her translational research group is to develop more efficacious therapies for individuals with malformations of the lymphatic system.
Dr. Sheppard earned her bachelor of science in nuclear science and engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then her medical degree and a doctorate in genetics, vascular development and bioinformatics through the combined MD–PhD program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Dr. Sheppard then completed a combined residency in pediatrics and clinical genetics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and following her clinical training, Dr. Sheppard joined the faculty of CHOP as a clinical geneticist in the Division of Human Genetics, the Comprehensive Vascular Anomalies Program, and the Jill and Mark Fishman Lymphatic Center. While at CHOP, she completed Masters of Translational Research at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and a post-doctoral fellowship in the Center of Applied Genomics at CHOP focusing on improved genetic diagnostics for diagnosis and treatment for patients with vascular malformations.
Dr. Sheppard is a prolific investigator, an active clinician board certified by the American Board of Medical Genetics and Genomics and the American Board of Pediatrics, and a sought-after mentor. She has authored or co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, and reviews and is a recipient of numerous awards, including as a NIH Distinguished Scholar, the NICHD Scientific Achievement Award, the John M. Opitz Young Investigator Award, and the ASCI Young Physician Scientist Award.